Mikey
In late 2005, Mikey joined the Spirit Squad, a faction of five wrestlers using the in-ring personas of male cheerleaders. Mikey and Kenny began appearing in dark matches and at live events using the Spirit Squad gimmick, and on January 2, 2006, Mikey lost to Chavo Guerrero. On January 23, 2006, they had their WWE television debut as a group, appearing on Raw and helping Jonathan Coachman win a Royal Rumble qualifying match against Jerry "The King" Lawler by distracting Lawler and performing cheers for Coachman. They later became a part of the on-going scripted feud between WWE chairman Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels. The heel (villainous) McMahon brought in the Squad to attack Michaels on numerous occasions, including placing them in multiple handicap matches. They also wrestled in the tag team division, and on April 3, on Raw, Mikey and Kenny defeated Kane and The Big Show to win the World Tag Team Championship, with help from the other Spirit Squad members. After winning the championship, all five members of the Spirit Squad were recognized as the champions, allowing any combination of them to defend the championship. In May, McMahon signed another handicap match, with the Spirit Squad facing Michaels. The Spirit Squad instead attacked Michaels before the match had started, and Triple H came out to help them. As a result of feeling disrespected by the Squad, however, Triple H helped Michaels instead. This led to Triple H and Michaels reforming D-Generation X (DX) and they began a feud with the Spirit Squad. DX played various sophomoric jokes on the Squad and the McMahons, as well as defeating the Spirit Squad in handicap tag team matches at Vengeance and a clean sweep in an elimination handicap match at Saturday Night's Main Event. At the same time as their feud with DX and their alignment with McMahon, the Squad also wrestled other teams in Raw's tag division over their World Tag Team Championship, successfully defending the championship against the teams of Jim Duggan and Eugene, Charlie Haas and Viscera, and Snitsky and Val Venis. They then entered a lengthy feud with The Highlanders, whom they eventually defeated to retain the championship at the Unforgiven pay-per-view in September. The Squad as a whole later began a losing streak with Johnny, Mikey, and Mitch losing singles matches to Ric Flair on consecutive episodes of Raw. After two consecutive losses to the debuting Cryme Tyme tag team, Kenny attacked Mikey on the October 23 episode of Raw and announced that he was going to defeat Flair. With the help of the other Spirit Squad members, Kenny was successful, despite Flair being accompanied to the ring by his own reinforcements (Dusty Rhodes, Sgt. Slaughter, and Roddy Piper). It was then announced that Flair and a legend, selected by interactive voting, would wrestle the team for the World Tag Team Championship at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view in early November. The fans chose Piper, and he and Flair defeated Kenny and Mikey to win the championship. The group disbanded on the November 27 episode of Raw, when they were defeated in a five-on-three handicap match by DX and Flair. In a backstage segment later that episode, DX placed all members into a crate and failed to appear on television again. Mikey made a one night return to WWE on the October 4 edition of Smackdown Live along with Kenny Dykstra in their Spirit Squad characters, appearing in a segment where they would taunt Dolph Ziggler about his time in the Spirit Squad. They would then attack Ziggler on orders from The Miz until Ziggler fought back and took them both out. Five days later, at the No Mercy pay-per-view, he and Kenny tried to distract Ziggler in his Career vs. title match under Maryse's command, but were unsuccessful in doing so, ultimately giving Ziggler the win. On the October 11 episode of WWE Smackdown, Mikey along with Kenny made their return to the ring as the duo took on Dolph Ziggler in a 2-on-1 Handicap match, which Dolph won. On the October 18 episode of WWE SmackDown, Kenny, Mikey, and the Miz defeated Dolph Ziggler, Heath Slater & Rhyno in a six-man tag team match where Kenny pinned Slater. Category:American wrestlers Category:Male professional wrestlers Category:People from New York Category:World Tag Team Champions Category:Current Alumni